


my hunger was a sparrow (so i ate its feathers)

by neohysteric



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Background Character Death, Exasparated Yearning, F/F, Knight!Moira, Mage!Emma, Moira is oblivious, Pining, Swords & Sorcery, Treason, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neohysteric/pseuds/neohysteric
Summary: It was clear that Moira didn't trust her. Emma knew that— she'd known ever since the night they'd been seated next to each other during a feast for the Queen's fortieth birthday.She hadn't forgotten about it even when she had been dragging the princess and her watchdog through a tunnel under a burning yard.
Relationships: Emma Frost/Moira MacTaggert
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	my hunger was a sparrow (so i ate its feathers)

It was well after midnight when Princess Ororo finally fell asleep, wrapped in Moira's cloak and the thin, rough blanket that was apparently all of the bedding included in the two pieces of copper they paid for the room. Watching how the girl was shivering just so slightly, Emma felt an urge to come down and enchant the innkeeper a pig's tail for his effort - or total lack of it, thereof - and she had nothing else but her own sensibility to thank for not giving in to the temptation. Logically speaking, she'd known that roadside taverns weren't exactly the kind of place where young ladies of royal bloodline would ever feel at home, but…. she could swear they'd gotten even worse in the time she'd spent on the court, isolated from the outside world as only the valued mages tended to be. 

Funny, how she'd had the gall to miss the traveler's life merely a few days earlier. Sure, the palace politics were horrible - and horribly boring when you had the advantage to know the intentions of everyone in any given room as soon as you stepped into it - and Emma had never quite managed to convince herself that wearing multiple sets of corsets for everyday errand running was really necessary; not to mention old men who felt inclined to send her courting gifts every once in a while. Amongst the countless languages known to humankind, there were no words to describe how Emma hated _this_ in particular.

Compared to the fact that she'd just had to hex a cockroach dead, however, even the monthly packages with pearls that still smelled of their former (deceased) owners were sort of preferable. 

Not that Emma had the luxury of a choice, of course. 

Not when she was on the run with the last rightful heir to the throne. Three days ago, the three of them - Emma, princess Ororo, and her personal watchdog, Captain Moira Kinross - had fled the Storm's Eye all covered in ash, their lungs filled with the thick smoke of a thousand-year-old palace burning behind their backs. There had been a coup, as the people on the road said. Staged by the Queen's personal mage, they added in scandalized whispers. 

"The Queen was so trusting. She let a serpent into her house, and that's how the serpent paid her back for this kindness - with venom," said some merchant's daughter whom Moira had asked for directions when they'd still been on the road. "One should know better with mages."

Emma refused to see the joke in how the girl was looking her dead in the eye while stating so, the expression on her face solemn like a gloomy September morning. According to just everyone in the kingdom, what had happened to the royal family was a tragedy of a century - half of the court was dead, the crowd's beloved princess was missing, and for what?

Ambitions of one crazy witch who couldn't even keep her wretched magic to herself?

One day, Emma would laugh at that. She'd send a letter to Erik and Azazel, invite them over to the seaside mansion she'd own by then (obviously) and tell them all about her career as a scapegoat over a cask of wine older than the palace she'd just seen being eaten away by flames. Hell, she'd even come up with an elegant way to describe how the girl had spat out the word mages as if it was a grave insult. She might hire a bard to write a song about it, too. 

That was a task for another day, though - perhaps one that didn't last half of a week and tasted like something other than the dried beef Moira seemed to have brought an endless supply of. Now, since she was tired as a maid after a night-long feast and dirty without the prospect of getting a bath in the near future, Emma just slumped on the chair and refused to acknowledge how loudly it cracked under her weight.

"What a joy to be alive," she muttered to herself, looking - not without righteous disgust - at the reddish dirt stuck in the creases of her palms. "And a most wanted villain in the entire country, at the top of that."

Moira - who was sitting on the floor like a heathen, but close enough to the door that it must've been some kind of a watchdog's thing on her part - immediately turned her head at that and gave Emma a narrow-eyed glance. If she'd known anything about magic, no doubt she'd be weaving silent curses in the air; thanks to Fate that members of Royal Guards loathed everything that you had to read at least one book about to understand the basics of.

They hadn't spoken for a couple of hours; there simply hadn't been such a need. It wasn't like they were friends, so Emma didn't mind. Truth to be told, she was glad that the otherwise insufferable Captain Kinross, the Ten Deaths Blade of Bittercress, had let her handle most of the negotiations with the innkeeper and had taken care of princess Ororo instead; Emma knew how to talk a middle-aged man into letting the three of them stay in one room, but traumatized teenagers were way out of her area of expertise.

When she had been fifteen and freshly crowned an orphan, she'd killed a street magician for less than a silver coin. Except that she'd been more like… eleven. And not raised in a palace, but rather in a tiny village in the middle of swampy nowhere. 

All in all, Moira couldn't possibly be less competent than Emma in regards to being a supportive adult fit to handle someone else's near-catatonic breakdown.

If she only stopped watching Emma's every step! It was beginning to get annoying, as if the other woman waited for her to… she wasn't sure what Moira could be waiting for, not really. Did she believe Emma would really change into a snake and bite the princess right in the calf if she as much as turned her head elsewhere? Or perhaps she was searching Emma's face for the traces of the infamous skin-altering spells all mages used to conceal their true, usually very grotesque, identities. 

"Do I have something on my face?" she asked.

Moira should be rather impressed that Emma managed to keep her voice pleasant - she was too tired to bother with manners, and yet, here she was, making an effort not to croak like a toad - but the Guards hardly ever did what was expected of them. The scowl on the woman's face deepened as she let out an incomprehensible grunt, but that was the whole answer Emma got. 

It was clear that Moira didn't trust her. Emma knew that— she'd known ever since the night they'd been seated next to each other during a feast for the Queen's fortieth birthday. She hadn't forgotten about it even when she had been dragging the princess and her watchdog through a tunnel under a burning yard. 

In the ten years between these two days, Moira hadn't aged a day; she wore her hair cropped short and her armor with pride, day by day proving to everyone around that she was more than a pretty face or the gruesome stories about her past. She'd been a mere Guard member when Emma had first met her - a mongrel hungry for the Queen's approval - and now, the woman sitting a foot away titled herself a Captain. She'd seen battlefields and waged wars, sent her men to die, and had to learn how to live with that.

And somewhere deep, deep inside this statue of a woman, there was this white-hot hatred for the Queen's prized mage who happened to be half of her size and useless at swordfights. Were it not for the fact of how miserable it made her feel, Emma would almost be honored.

"You know, some people would consider what you're doing somewhat crude," she said. Moira raised both an eyebrow and a corner of her upper lip; hatred, hatred, vile as a serpent wrapped about the bone. Emma could write ballads about it. "You can't just stare at me and say nothing, Kinross. That's a bit churlish."

To no one's surprise, Moira didn't say anything to defend herself. She glanced, for a brief second, at Ororo's sleeping form - thankfully, the girl had stopped shivering at some point, and her face seemed to have relaxed a bit - but after that, her eyes were back on Emma.

"Suit yourself. I have a couple of things to do that I need to stay focused on, so it would be lovely if you managed not to snore for about half an hour from now on."

And since there wasn't much she wanted to contribute to this - ha - conversation, Emma turned around and reached for the spare candle holder sitting on the small table right under the window. It was ridiculous that this room would have that in excess, but only one measly blanket; last time she'd checked, metal was still more expensive than linen and much more likely to be stolen by adventurous guests.

Or perhaps it had changed as well through the years? Perhaps the vagabonds and knights-errant left the taverns with the bedding tucked under their cloaks now. Stranger things had happened in this country, after all.

No matter. Emma weighted the candle holder in her hand and - satisfied with what she discovered - turned it into a small mirror and a pair of scissors. They were very simple, nearly clunky; she was too tired to care for decorative aspects. What was important was that the mirror was smooth and the blades sharp enough to draw blood when she tested it on the inside of her palm—

Suddenly, there was a clatter of heavy boots hitting the floor. Then, Emma saw a hand encircled around her own wrist. Callused fingers dug into her pulse point - it was a statement to her, well, unseemly state of mind that she hadn't had a hex at the ready.

"What do you think you're doing?" Moira asked, voice dripping with this particular kind of well-seasoned contempt Emma suspected all guards learned during the training. 

Perhaps there was a special course - a little something squeezed in between the fencing classes and cramming names of the noble families across the country- where every single esquire had to prove they were ready to throw away however little remains of manners they might ever possess. Granted, Emma's opinion of guards and people who wanted to become them wasn't too high (in fact, she wasn't afraid to admit she valued some of the royal carrier pigeons more than most of these sword-sworn idiots who called themselves knights), but she had her reasons.

Exhibit one hundred and twenty-seven: Moira right here, even though a smart guard on a daily basis, still felt inclined to get physical with a mage. Emma eyed the other woman's hand - it was warm and not as rough as the scars webbing around the skin might suggest - and didn't let her own composure drop or pulse quicken.

"How courteous of you," —Emma let her hand turn crystal for a moment; it was a cheap trick, deceit of a street magician who counted every copper twice. Still, Moira gasped and loosened her grip, proving that the guard's life hadn't yet slaughtered all of her self-perseverance instincts— "not to speak to me for the vast majority of our journey and only open your pretty little mouth to question my actions. Pray tell, Captain Kinross, what about my blade - which is way smaller than the one you carry attached to your belt, may I say - has insulted you so?"

Moira was quick to recover from the shock, and she sent Emma a glare that could freeze seas. Charming, weren't these women from the Royal Guard? 

"You're so full of shit," she said, disdain in her voice thick enough to strangle a horse.

And considering how many horses in the palace stables belonged to the Guardians, perhaps it was yet another skill they taught the knights during their infamous training. Emma, because she was tired and a little bit out of her mind, couldn't help but imagine Captain Rasputin explaining to the cadets how to fill a form for a steed refund.

"Why, Captain." She shook her head, both because she wanted to get rid of the image of Rasputin's always-so-shiny armor, but also because her vision was swimming slightly from the lack of sleep. "There's no need to be so rude. Why don't you take a nap? Without snoring, of course. As I said, snoring would be very inconvenient."

Moira took a deep, outraged breath.

"What?" she asked, voice hushed, yet still venomous. "There's no way I'll leave you alone with the princess. Take a nap? You _wish_."

Emma sighed. "My wishes, captain, are far less miserable than this cramped room and the merry company of a broken girl carrying a broken kingdom on her shoulders."

Princess Ororo stirred in her sleep as if she sensed the strained atmosphere and mentions of herself. Moira shot a worried glance at the bed - visibly ready to protect the girl with all she had, was there such a need - but the teen just turned around and went still once again.

The way her chest rose and fell with each breath seemed surreal after everything Ororo had been through - it almost looked too easy. Emma pried her gaze away, unsure what to think about the pity that filled her chest.

"You're here only because the princess hasn't yet told me to get rid of you," Moira said.

"Of course." Emma rolled her eyes. It made something under her skull snap and pulse with quick, dull pain; damn the runaway life. The ballads were lying - there was nothing pleasant about the experience. "And if she ordered you to jump into the fire, you would do it with a smile on your face. Look, Captain— I'm here because the two of us happen to want the same thing, which is to get the princess out of this wretched country."

"That's what I want." Moira corrected. "What you want, though? Different story. I don't fucking trust you, Frost."

"Oh, believe me - it's hardly a secret. I know."

If she was all venom before, now Moira turned into the embodiment of cold rage.

"No," she ground out. "You don't."

Goddess of Darkholme Island, Emma was too tired for this. All she wanted was to close her eyes and not open them for the next half of a decade - she'd spent the past three days in the saddle, and the inside of her mouth tasted like a dead skunk bear brought back to life.

"I don't?" Emma examined the dirt under her fingernails; it looked as if her fingers were grieving for all the baths she'd missed this week. "One might assume that after what I've done—"

"And what have you done, exactly? Tell me, enchantress." It was obvious that Moira was fighting with herself not to raise her voice. For the sake of the princess sleeping half a yard away from the two of them, Emma hoped that the Captain would come out victorious of this particular battle. "You think you can rough yourself up on the road and make me believe you're all good? That you aren't hiding anything? Like hell. Everything's on fire, but you - of all fucking people, it's you! - show up in the princess' quarters in the middle of the night with your fucking bags already packed and calmly tell us that the Queen is dead and we have to go!"

"Did I lie to you?" Emma asked.

Moira laughed, but it was an ugly, hollow sound. "How would I know? It was just so convenient, Frost. So fucking convenient. The palace's burning, but you can lead us through a secret tunnel! The Queen is dead, but our fucking horses are ready for the run! What I'm supposed to make out of that?"

"Nothing. I swore my loyalty to the royal family. I did my job. You... make nothing out of that."

"You swore? And that should convince me? We both know what that's worth, mage."

Emma wasn't certain whether she would rather be called her last name - which she'd given herself at the tender age of fourteen, jealous of all these noble kids who ran around with titles more elaborate than the charms they could cast - or… that. "Mage" was a word stuffed to the brim with disdain and prejudice, at least in this country. Even though people who wielded magic were useful, they had the exact status of spiders: good for pest control, but also quite disgusting when you saw them somewhere out of the corner of your eye.

Apparently, Moira had only the worst of thoughts about her.

"Do you think I staged the coup?" Emma let her voice become silk, even though her throat hurt with every word. "That I killed the Queen?"

Something conflicted flashed on Moira's face, but it was soon consumed by anger.

"You—"

"Yes, Captain. Me. You want to blame me for saving the princess' life?"

"You had no right to— I won't believe that you just happened to have a sack full of… fucking riding trousers, Frost! You, with your absurd white gowns and fox furs! With your diamonds and pearls around your neck! People of your sort don't have sensible clothes stored somewhere, ready to be used in the cause of goddamn treason!"

"Don't you keep a bag like this under your own bed? With belts and trousers, spare money to buy you a few silent nights?" Emma tilted her head to the side. The hitch in Moira's breathing told her she was right; she hardly needed magic when the other woman was so easy to read. "Times are tough, my fair Captain—"

"Don't call me that, Frost."

"—and tough times call for unpleasant measures. Any sensible lady knows it's better to come prepared than crawl up delayed by her own funeral."

Moira huffed an irritated sigh.

"Bullshit! This is bullshit, Frost. I'm not an idiot nobleman, and we're not in the palace anymore, so save this fake innocence for someone who cares. How did you know what'd happen?"

There was a thing about being a mage with a flair for telepathy - even your mother shouldn't be made aware of the fact you could read other people's minds. They called it a forbidden art for a reason... and Emma didn't really feel like the right person to try to convince the wider public otherwise; not when she knew she wouldn't believe that herself in the first place, were she not a mage.

She had sensed the disaster a few hours too late to be able to prevent it. The Queen had already drunk the poison by then - which was another secret she'd take to her grave since the Queen had soon after burnt to ashes - and the conspirators had been all around the palace. 

"I didn't." Emma lied. "I didn't know there would be a coup."

"Do you even hear yourself? You knew something! You might not know everything - which I doubt - but it was enough."

"Enough for what, my fair—"

"Damn it, Frost!" Moira all but growled, coming closer, squaring her shoulders as if she was readying herself for a fight. "We're not friends! It's not a secret you've got blood on your hands. You've killed men— no, don't fucking interrupt me with your smart words. You can tell me whatever you want, but I don't trust you. People like you don't turn good overnight."

Their faces were mere inches away - Emma could count the faint freckles on Moira's nose, trace the moon-like shape of a scar on her cheek. Of course, she saw the simmering rage in the other woman's eyes, but she held her gaze as if it didn't phase her even in the slightest.

What was one angry Guard compared to the dozens of nobles who had literally dreamt about sinking their decorative knives in the royal mage's back? What was one Moira Kinross set side by side with lord Shaw whom Emma had served for one broken arm too many?

"Nothing" was the answer, and so, Emma forced herself not to stare at Moira's lips for longer than a blink of an eye.

(They looked very soft.)

"We've been on the run for three days," Emma said in the end. She could feel her own breath bouncing off Moira's face; it was hot. "Trust me, my—" no, not that. Deathwish was what Emma had left behind many years ago. "Moira." The scowl on the other woman's face said: try again or try my sword. Charming, indeed. "Captain Kinross. Trust me, Captain Kinross - if I wanted you or the princess dead, I'd long have both of your corpses buried in a forest by the road. You wouldn't even know what got you."

Sometimes, tortures looked like this: 

One of the corner's of Moira's lips - left, to be precise - quirked upwards in a brief flash of something akin to disgust, but she didn't move her face even half an inch. There were dark circles under her eyes and a considerable layer of dust on her eyebrows, a jolly reminder of the fact that the woman hadn't had a bath in almost half a week (perhaps longer, who could be sure with these sword-sworn heathens) and Emma, for reasons unable to be bent to the rules of rationality, would still follow her to the most horrendous depths of hell if asked.

The only consolation was that Moira wouldn't ask. Oh, how much it consoled her.

"Are you going to kiss me now?" Emma asked because her number one tactic for dealing with unwanted turmoil was to blame it on someone else. She watched with satisfaction as Moira's eyes widened, the fight leaving the woman in an instant to make a place for… panic, was it? In this dark room, no such thing could be certain. "Or is that more of a spit-in-your-face situation? I can never tell it with you, Captain."

Boots clattering against the floor - if the princess woke up, Emma would kill a certain knight with her bare hands - Moira scrambled back, face a bit more ashen than it had been just a few heartbeats earlier. When she moved, a stray lock of hair escaped the tight bun on the top of her head and was now pillowed on the woman's forehead, making her look quite miserable and worn-out. 

"That's-- fuck." Moira stuttered out, her eyes wide as saucers, heartbeat like a drum in the otherwise quiet room. "You're trying to throw me off, aren't you?"

A shrug couldn't be the answer Moira wanted, but it was the only one she ever got. It didn't seem to please her too greatly.

There was a faint layer of pink coloring the woman's face, meaning that Emma's flawless strategy had once again worked better than just well. Who would've thought that even the rowdy Guards could be embarrassed? And with such ease, at the top of that.

"You're unhinged," Moira said after a moment of silence. The fight evaporated from her shoulders almost completely, leaving nothing but bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. 

"So I've been told," Emma nodded.

She wanted, for a brief moment, to add a bite-sized comment how she wouldn't have expected Moira to know such difficult words - last time she'd checked, the Guards only visited the palace library when they had to stand watch by its door - but she decided to save it for some other day. They were both too tired now; further arguing would wear them down for nothing. Emma knew that the other woman didn't trust her enough to fall asleep in her presence, so… it was going to be a long night.

Not exactly in a way she usually preferred her nights to get long, though.

"What the hell are you doing?" Moira asked in a nearly civil voice. "If it's some strange magic…"

Emma couldn't help but wince; she wished it was something she could fix with a spell, but the problem with being a mage was that you fool half of the world, but never the creature who stared at you from the mirror. "It's not magic."

"Then what?"

"In case it wasn't obvious—"

"I wouldn't ask if it was."

"Of course. Silly me!"

"Frost—"

"Easy, Kinross. It's a disguise."

Moira's eyes narrowed in suspicion, and her shoulders squared a bit like the sudden need to stay on guard in the face of something unclear appeared. Emma sighed.

"The knights and mercenaries all around the country will look for a princess with silver hair, her loyal watchdog in green, and a witch from the North." She explained. "I have a feeling that they won't praise my beauty much - which is a shame - but still, we make a colorful bunch. I can keep a glamour on Ororo... and you can simply stop wearing your lofty vest, but I can't charm myself - we'll have to take care of that the old-fashioned way." 

"It's a normal vest." Moira protested, even though she was smart enough not to sound too offended about it. One of her hands crept up to cover the Royal Guard's crest engraved a finger's width over her heart, where the leather armor was especially thick.

"It smells foul, though. I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with you knights' customs, but—"

"And what do you mean that you can't charm yourself?"

Emma rolled her eyes. Someone, she thought, should finally tell the Guards that books didn't bite.

"Don't get your hopes up - I'm not incompetent. No mage can put a spell on themselves."

"Huh." Moira crossed her arms. She didn't look convinced.

There was a moment of silence between them - it felt tense and strained, but the seething rage seemed to have already excused itself out of the room. What had slipped in its place was much more stable- not yet calm, but she was exhausted enough to pretend.

"So what are you going to do?"

Emma raised her scissors and looked towards the ceiling - what had she done in her previous life to deserve all of this? - when Moira narrowed her eyes once again. The run ahead of them would be a bumpy one, wouldn't it? Bumpy and long.

If she could put a spell on herself - just one, just like in the stories the adepts in the Institute shared when the nights grew too cold to sleep through them without fear of never waking up again - she'd do something to carve all the emotions out of her head. Life would be so easy without them; she'd finally be able not to think too much about that blood she indeed had on her hands.

And her traitorous heart wouldn't be so inclined to constantly speed up the pace whenever a certain Moira Kinross entered the room.

"I'm going to become a lowly merchant from… let's say, some shithole by the Rotten Peak. A nobody wanted by death when my time comes, and death alone."

"You—" Moira swallowed and looked down at Emma's chest. In any other situation, she would be flattered - perhaps even a bit hopeful - but now it only served to irritate her. Without her carefully crafted dresses, there wasn't much to see there. "Are you serious?"

"Serious as a declaration of war, Captain." Emma turned around so that she wasn't facing Moira anymore; suddenly, the closeness between them felt overwhelming. She still saw the other woman in the fake silver of her mirror, though, so the relief was minimal. "As you've already pointed out, I have a bag full of riding trousers. There's also a bottle of alcanna here. It's known as the secret behind the red hair obsession in the court a couple of years ago... you probably haven't heard of it, though."

The expression on Moira's face could only be described as slightly lost with hints of the good old confusion that especially the members of the Royal Guard could be often caught with when confronted with the inevitability of their wits being questioned. Emma rolled her eyes. 

On ash and ice, why couldn't she fall for someone who didn't make her want to scratch her own ribcage open in frustration?

"Come morning light I'm going to be a young man of ginger hair and freckles all over my face," she said. "You're going to call me Jehan of Greywarden."

Another passing minute, another flavor of furrowed brows from Moira. "But you're—"

In general, Emma was aware of what others thought she was - a wretch in love with no one but her own reflection - and she didn't need (didn't _want_ ) to have it confirmed by Moira.

"Don't look so shocked, please," Emma said, watching in the mirror as Moira's already knitted brows furrowed even further. Somehow, she looked younger like that; less of a ruthless swordmaster, more of a girl she must've been before she'd stepped into the ranks and this god-awful guard armor. "I'll still be vain and overweening, and you'll still be able to hate me. Could you let me do what needs to be done now? Or do you perhaps want to give me a hand? Or that kiss I'm sure I felt in the air just a moment earlier?"

As it turned out, Moira was glad to come back to her corner and sulk in silence (but no sooner than she spat one last insult about annoying mages). Emma didn't comment on that and, without further distractions, quickly cut her hair into what reminded her of a wheat field right after the harvest season. The strands felt like velvet under the tips of her fingers while her own face in the mirror looked alien, too angular for any court noble to consider calling it pretty.

She decided she quite liked the outcome. Were she less weary and less a fool whose heart still beat, she'd ask Moira for a second opinion. Would she like it? Would she even care? Emma realized she didn't know if she was into other women in the first place. It was obvious that she was married to her job first and foremost, but certainly, even the saint Captain Kinross had a sweetheart, perhaps some straightforward person working in stables...?

No, oh, dear. No. Emma was way too tired for this. She got up to retrieve some water from the bucket in the corner of the room - thankfully, it wasn't the same Moira claimed her very own misery lair - and grabbed a tiny bottle from her bag on the way back to her makeshift dressing table. 

It was a feat not to glance at princess Ororo, but Emma somehow managed not to do that, afraid she might fall asleep on the spot if she as much as thought about beds and blankets. She'd have to rest at some point tonight - these stolen, measly hours of slumber during the past three days wouldn't suffice for much longer - but she still had so much to do. Running away was only easy when you were the one a mage would put a glamour on, but never the other way round. 

"I don't hate you," Moira said when Emma was halfway through putting alcanna in her hair. 

"Could've fooled me, Kinross, with all these insults and grabbing my wrists at random."

"I don't _always_ hate you," Moira said once again, quieter this time. "But I don't trust you."

Emma hummed in response, pleased to let the other woman interpret it however she wanted. She thought about how the world believed itself hilarious when it was, in fact, nothing of this sort, not even in the slightest. How come she saved the princess and was called a kingslayer for that, while an insignificant act of cutting her own hair granted her something akin to a free pass?

It would never fail to astound her how much vanity people had put into her name. 

That was okay, however. If they wanted her to be a doll, she'd take it; she'd had worse, after all, and besides… when spells were cast and kingdoms conquered, she was a bit of a narcissist at heart.

"I'll be watching you," Moira said. Now she was back with the firm tone of voice and words laced with steel; familiar grounds, familiar grudges. No one could go wrong with that. "Whatever you do, wherever you go— I want the princess safe, and I won't let you hurt her in any way, so remember: I'll be watching."

Oh, Emma sure hoped so. 

She didn't wear these tight riding trousers for comfort, after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> huge thanks to [flighinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/profile)for beta reading this fic. you're amazing!
> 
> come talk to me on my [tumblr](https://neohysteric.tumblr.com) (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)


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